In his post, Bob Harrison asked "Maybe Trevor W. or Peter D.from Australia
will add information or correct parts of the information I presented."
No need Bob, you were quite right.

For those of you receiving packages/queens from Australia, rest easy. You just are NOT going to suffer an incursion of cerana bees or tropilaelaps from this source. 
 
For those of you trying to block imports of packages/queens from Australia, nothing I say will change your view. But Bob is also quite right in drawing attention to the fact that your greatest risk of acquiring these particular problems is via an inadvertant import associated with transport containers shipped from Asia.
In that regard the question you should be addressing is "How good is your ability to detect, and control or eliminate,
such an incursion." That is a process which has been going on here for some time and there are valuable lessons to be learned from that process for all of us, whatever our location and views on the  benefits or otherwise of stock imports.

So I ask the question, is YOUR industry applying pressure to YOUR biosecurity agencies to ensure that these lessons have been learned and appropriate protection and response procedures are in place to provide for these risks?
Thats where your energies really need to be directed. The risks associated with controlled, authorised and deliberate imports have been extremely well dealt with by biosecurity agencies at both ends of the US-Australia supply chain, such that there is negligible risk of a problem arising in that way.

PeterD
Western Australia




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